NYC subway fare hike delayed, but will likely increase to $3 by year's end

NYC subway fare hike delayed, but will likely increase to $3 by year’s end

July 1, 2025

Your standard New York City transit fare could top $3 by the end of the year. As part of a budget approved last year, the MTA is planning a 4 percent increase for subway and bus fares. Although originally planned to take effect in August, the hike will likely be delayed, as it must first go through a mandatory public comment period, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said during the agency’s monthly board meeting. As reported by Gothamist, the increase is expected to coincide with the MTA’s phaseout of MetroCard sales—a major step in the system’s transition to OMNY.

“Our budget included, as it regularly does, every two years a projection of a four percent fare hike because that’s the pattern that has been set since 2010,” Lieber said. “Because of the nature of the public process, it won’t be in August. We’re going to initiate the public process and it will happen in all probability sometime later in the year.”

The last fare hike took effect in August 2023, when the MTA raised the base fare by five percent—from $2.75 to $2.90. Seven-day passes rose from $33 to $34, and 30-day unlimited passes increased from $127 to $132. Express bus fares climbed from $6.75 to $7, while the express seven-day pass went from $62 to $64.

Prior to that, the last hike came in 2019 when the price of a monthly subway and bus pass rose from $121 to $127 and a weekly pass from $32 to $33. The base fare last increased in 2015 when it went from $2.50 per trip to $2.75, as 6sqft previously reported.

In December 2022, officials revealed that transit fares could rise above $3 by 2025, a steeper increase than initially projected due to significant budget deficits caused by low ridership. At that time, the agency faced a $600 million annual deficit.

The proposed hike has only been approved as part of the agency’s budget, which the board unanimously passed during its monthly meeting on December 18, 2024, according to AMNY.

The upcoming retirement of the MetroCard has raised concerns among commuters who rely on 30-day unlimited passes, which are only available through the card. At a news conference, Lieber did not commit to keeping the 30-day plan after the MetroCard, but pointed to OMNY’s existing seven-day unlimited option, which caps the amount riders can spend using the tap-to-pay system in any given week at $34.

According to the MTA, roughly $40 million in fare value from weekly and monthly MetroCards goes unused each year. With OMNY, riders won’t have to pre-pay for multiple trips to receive a discount, avoiding the loss of unused fare value.

Transitioning to OMNY is projected to save the MTA at least $20 million annually by reducing expenses related to MetroCard production, distribution, vending machine maintenance, and cash handling, according to a press release.

The long-delayed rollout of OMNY, which began in 2019 as a replacement for the MetroCard, has faced several setbacks. In September 2022, the MTA said it would fully replace the MetroCard by the end of 2023, but the timeline was pushed back due to the pandemic and delays in delivering OMNY card vending machines. In October 2023, the first OMNY vending machines were installed at select subway stations across the city.

In March, the MTA announced that MetroCard sales would end on December 31. Retail partners, including bodegas and drugstores, will stop selling MetroCards this fall. Riders will still be able to use their MetroCards for payment through 2026, with the MTA expected to confirm the exact end date later, as 6sqft previously reported.

It will also be more expensive to get to New York City. Across the Hudson, New Jersey Transit’s latest fare hike took effect Tuesday, raising the cost of train, bus, and light rail rides by three percent. The increase follows last year’s 15 percent fare bump, a move designed to make up for a nine-year fare freeze, according to Gothamist.

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